Reciprocal Link Requests: How to Decide Who to Say "Yes" to?

The subject of reciprocal linking comes up fairly regularly in discussion about search engine optimization. "Reciprocal linking" in its "pure" form means that you exchange a link with another website, by hosting a link to that site in return for a link to your site. Chances are that the more search engine rankings you have, the more requests for link exchanges you will receive. Reciprocal linking is mostly related to SEO and improving your visitor experience by linking to and from relevant sites, but the larger category of Internet Marketing also can gain some momentum in the form of increased traffic.

A thread started by a member of the High Rankings Forum the other day asks “How do I know if a site is good to exchange links with.” Some good suggestions follow, especially those that have to do with relevancy. The thread deals with mostly basics, and can be found at High Rankings Forums.

As I mentioned, this topic does come up fairly often, but I thought this may be a good place to gather some particularly good resources (thanks to the trusty Category Archive found here at SER). Other posts that relate to this topic and link to still very valid discussions about reciprocal linking and their SEO and other benefits include: